002_Reaction to Lev Manovich's "What is Digital Cinema?"

Manovich begins the essay by describing the linear progression of film in the past 100 years. He describes early film as moving images, each frame hand made through the use of physical or mechanical interaction. Such practices are shown through technology like the Kinetoscope, the Zootrope, and the Phenakistiscope, all tailored as "sequences of images featuring complete actions which can be played repeatedly." Once film was introduced at higher speeds, the public perceived it as a medium that could "capture" reality, unlike the static images of photography. Therefore, film became a method of documentation of what is real, or present in life. Manovich argues that digital cinema does exactly what film shouldn't do: become an advocate of early forms of animation. Therefore, the film's "visual style exists within a space between cinema and collage." I believe Manovich is correct in saying digital cinema changed the way film has/had been used, although it is unfair to place such negative connotations with the new media. He claims that "digital media returns to us the repressed cinema." Although with this repression, contemporary film frees a hundred years of stigma attached to the medium's use only as realism, and furthermore allows for digital editing to free the artist of cinematic limitations. This fluctuation or "misuse" of the medium does materialize film with a computer, but in doing so, the digital medium has an anticipation towards "new" forms of non-linear and non-narrative expression. I believe these digital progressions or, as Manovich would claim, digressions are critical for the progression of moving images as art.